Froggies!

When our friends told us they were expecting, there may have first been squeals and tears of joy on my part, but there was most certainly the search for the perfect pattern - a pattern that spoke to the Fuzzband and myself of our friends. They love nature and have an appreciation of crafting. They have a huge back yard where they can observe all kinds of wildlife from deer to raccoons to humming birds. Maybe frogs, too...

I have not been into crochet for a while, although I have made snowflakes and some other small things. Our friend KR is a great crocheter, and her works has inspired me, so I had looked at afghan patterns for a while and saved several. The Etsy store The Hat and I has several marvelous patterns, and I have queued several on Ravelry. So that is where I ended up after my search. This is the one we picked for the little love on his way:

I had it in my Ravelry favorites all ready for purchase, so all I needed was the yarn. Luckily I already have a favorite cotton yarn. I went online and basically bought a ball of each color that was vaguely watery and froggy by Lily's Sugar 'n' Cream. I don't remember which website I got it from - apologies. I am too lazy to dig up the receipt. Bad crafter, bad! However, when not buying in bulk, I buy it from JoAnn's, so I will link that website...

Anyway. It was great to pick a motif (frog, lily pad or bubble) and then focus on those. Very satisfying! Here is a pile of finished frog panels:

One of the things I love about the pattern is that one froggy gets to be royalty!

I also got to go to a baby shower for the baby. I have very limited experience with this whole shower concept, but I figured out gifts are involved. Of course, where I come from home made gifts are key, but I could not finish the blanket! So I knit a cardigan as well:

This is the famous Presto Chango by Valerie Wallis. I have made several, and it is always as satisfying and fun! The mother is a botanist, so I made the panel leaf patterned:

And of course I added my "signature"

Fun times! And the shower was lots of fun as well. We got lost on the way, but thanks to mobile phone technology we made it in time for games and delicious food! I gather that men are not usually part of baby showers, but the father, grandfather, and the Fuzzband were all present, so way to go family B for opening up to the lads! I am also proud to announce that I won the games where the object was a blind folded diaper change on a stuffed animal! I am not competitive by nature, but I have to admit I am a little proud of this victory, especially considering the mothers and grandmothers present. I think it is the finger dexterity from handicrafts more than the number of diapers I have changed... 

I handed over the blanket just before we left on vacation, and it was so cool to think that the next time I would see my friends they would be a Mom and Dad! Exciting! 

And finally, the little darling was born on August 31st, happy and healthy at 7 pounds and 1 ounce! We were on vacation in Beautiful British Columbia, but I got to hold him when he was just over two weeks old. The cuteness is beyond words. He has THE most perfect little ears and upper lip on the planet! I cannot wait to see him grow and learn. 

Merry Christmas!

I used to be a letter writer. I mean, a real letter writer. Long, handwritten letters. My godparents have a 24 page letter I wrote to them from Rome tucked into their two or three file cabinet sections dedicated to Stuff From Finnish Goddaughter. They have saved all my letters.

I also like writing cards. I used to write lots of them. Postcards, note cards, handmade cards...

Then I went to grad school. Then I got my first academic job. Yeah... But I have managed some holiday cards. Not a lot, but a couple. Typically based on responding to someone who wrote to me, but not always. Everyone I did not write to - I am torn between apologizing and figuring that those whose opinion is worth it will not mind at all.

The only people I consistently write to and even send Christmas gifts to - I am blessed with a family who is not very focused on gifts at all - are my godparents. It's sort of become a thing: my whole life they sent my family 4 Christmas tree ornaments, usually with the names of my family members on them. When my sister and I moved away from home we split them up and we all have enough handmade ornaments for a tree of our own. When my Fuzzband and I settle down permanently, one of the perks will be that I will bring my godparent-made ornaments from Finland. Since I moved to the US, my godparents now send me an ornament or two as there are two of us. Typically they are either handmade or unicorn themed. I love unicorns, and it has also become a thing between my godmother and myself.

And so, as my godmother and I both revel in crafting, and my godfather appreciates our skills, that is what I have been regaling them with for decades. I have made them garlands, balls, cross stitch things... Typically Christmas themed items, of course, but I have sent them handcrafted items out of season, so to speak. When I visit, their home is riddled with crafts I have produced over the years. It is amazing to have godparents like these, and it is such a privilege to be so present in their home.

This year I did not make them the traditional Christmas decorations as they have recently downsized and really don't need more stuff. Instead, I made a bunch of Christmas cards over US Thanksgiving weekend that they can send to family and friends over the holidays. The theme this year was basically origami Christmas trees: instructions from Flowerbug's Inkspot. Very addicting! OMG! So much fun to fold, glue, add sparkles, rhinestones, punch snowflakes... I made my godparents about a dozen cards - but forgot to photograph them. They looked so impressive all arrayed on the counter... Oh well...

However, here are a few I either did not include because they needed a bit more work, or that I made later.

This one I made from one of my old thank you cards that depicts the Turku Cathedral - which is my favorite church in the world. I cut it out of its original, summery setting and added a snowy tree we can peek behind to see the magnificence of 14th century awesome. I am particularly pleased at how the snowflakes cut out from tissue paper have a slightly ethereal thing going on:

This one was missing something originally - it was one of the first I made. What it was missing was SPARKLE! I had heirloom sequins, but they really needed pastel Rhinestones added to them, and snowflakes. I love my snowflake stamper... 

An ode to tea at Christmas time. The true addict will drink tea from a cardboard coffee shop cup, a holiday themed mug, or a cup with a saucer, or - let's face it - a rubber boot. When I found this crafting paper, it SPOKE to me:

Mulberry paper and teeny heart shaped buttons. I love the buttons. It may be a problem in my life. They are so ADORABLE!

One of the great card inspirations in my life is CET over at Sartorial Sidelines. She makes cards every Christmas and they are works of art. How she manages the time is a mystery, but then she is one of the two most organized people in the world. As I said about the other organizational wonderwoman: If I was Jesus, I would hire her to organize my second coming. Yes, that's how organized these ladies are!  

And finally, because it is adorable: a glimpse of our Christmas Beaver:

We bought him a few years ago in Essex, CT, "The Best Little Town in America." The Fuzzband and I were visited by one of my oldest friends, the remarkably talented Tonja  and her partner T, and decided to get out of New Haven; do some sightseeing. So, we went exploring Essex for their Halloween Scarecrow weekend event. It was a nice little town with some eccentric scarecrows and the lovely, quaint and delicious Griswold Inn. There was also a Christmas shop, and one of the types of ornament was these animals made from bristles. Of course we got the beaver! Here Mr. Christmas Beaver is posing in the tree with our brand new Finnish flag string from Uniquely Nordic. 

So, Merry Christmas! God Jul!

R is a skier.

The Fuzzband and I have been blessed with wonderful friends. Sometimes these friends are glorious enablers! In the summer of 2012 we were at our friends' M and R's - delicious food, fun people, croquet in the back yard, the neighbors' kids had a party and ended up playing a game that involved running around with glo-sticks. It was fabulous!

One of the outcomes of the party was that R - a dashing gentleman with the most sincere kindness you could ever hope to meet (Fuzzband and I do not think he is capable of a negative thought) - got to talking about sweaters. Now, R is an AVID cross country skier. He told me it had been his dream since for ever to have a sweater with cross country skiers on it. Really? Well, let's Ravelry it! I'll knit a sweater if he pays for the yearn. Really? Really. We did some searching on Ravelry, and found little. In the end we decided to combine the pattern from a hat with a sweater I would make from scratch. Exciting! And R got a hat out of the bargain as well: 

The pattern is by Bea Ellis Knitwear, which can be found on Ravelry, Facebook, and e-Bay. It seems they are no longer in business. I caught them at a moment when there were a couple of items up on e-Bay, and after a few messages, I managed to get in touch and actually purchase the pattern. They only sell kits, so R and M decided which colors they wanted from the beautiful Falk yarns at Dale of Norway - that's the yarn the kit uses. It was very nice of Bea Ellis to accommodate the colors I requested, and the kit arrived nice and prompt. Score! The hat was very much appreciated:

After this, I did some serious measuring, knitter's math, and figuring things out based on Ann Bud's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns:

Much tea was consumed. I ordered the yarn from my Dale of Norway purveyor of choice, www.woolubaabaa.com - and service was cheerful, friendly, and prompt:

I don't like knitting to deadlines, and R was the perfect recipient - cheerful, grateful, excited, and always telling me to take my time. I cast on Dec. 9th. I ended up unraveling the ribbing and trying out the tubular cast-on (thank goodness I bought Nancie M. Wiseman's The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques all those years ago!) - it is cast-on love! Where has it been all my life? 

I copied the skier pattern and multiplied that until I had a ribbon on skiers. The lower band - I think of it as the snowbanks R skis over - also grows out of the ribbing. I am a little bit ridiculously proud of the back as well, and the collar is a Kitchener Stitch bind-off - again my first! I did the body in the US, and the sleeves while teaching in Germany.

I ended up finishing the sweater on August 4th, 2013. In other words it had dried from blocking, and I sewed my "handmade by Miti" tag into it. Apparently I did a marvelous job:

To add to the incredible excitement of this year has been M and R's little baby J! I had leftover yarn from daddy R's sweater, so of course a matching piece had to be produced, right? I settled on Valerie Wallis' Presto Chango which I'd also knit for another friend. I like the option of multiple panels so grandma can hold a kid without milk drool, should that be an issue. It also meant I could do two panels - duh!

Presto Chango calls for heavier weight yarn than the Falk I had, so after a bit of knitters' math, it was easy to cast on the number of stitches needed for a one year old, and do the measurements for 6 months, and with a bit of luck it will get cold enough in New England for J to actually, you know, wear it before he gets too big. I feel I have done the patterns as well s the yarn justice. Not much more I can eke out of that combo. 

Professionally Pink

Several years ago (fall 2007) a historian of medieval law visiting at the Yale Divinity School sat in on the seminar - are you ready for the name? - Medieval Law! It was being taught in the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library Rare Books and Manuscripts reading room and was one of those epic experiences professionally, recreationally, anecdotally, educationally, and socially. It was also the semester my Degenerative Disc Disease had a glorious relapse and I was on pain medications that sent me into hysterical giggles ca 30 mins after taking  a pill. Of course, in order to sit through a seminar I had to medicate myself right before class. I am deeply grateful to the Professor and my colleagues for their patience, support, and help. Minus points to the Law School for disabled access to the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, though. I could not take the stairs for months, so I had to take an elevator up to the modern library, trundle my wheely bag across the way, and take another elevator down to the basement... To figure this out required discussions with two librarians, two security guards, a call to the Disability Access office, and several friendly law students who carried my bag and let me lean on them. 

I know you wanted that back story.

Anyway, the medieval law historian. Let us call her Ms. Law Mentor.

 Ms. Law Mentor took me under her wing, and has been extremely helpful and supportive in my career. Plus, she is bucketloads of plain, pure, fun and has fabulous common sense. And as my adored sister-in-law would say: Common sense - not that common. But Ms. Law Mentor has it. Part of this common sense is realizing when to let go of things. So she let go of 14 skeins of Cotton Classic yarn by Tahki Yarns, and gave them to me! We are talking beautiful mercerized cotton any knitter would kill for. Unless they hate knitting in cotton, but we are ignoring that possibility in this utterly common sensical blog posting. The color was black. Now, I almost never wore black at the time, and even now only if I can pair it with bright colors. Preferably bright oranges or pinks. At the time, I did not do pink. There is a follow-up to that statement.

So, what should a non-black wearing girl do with such a treasure? Well, the answer came browsing Ravelry, of course. Hilary Engebretson's design Emerald Seas was the perfect solution! It is a top, knitted with a series of eylet rows down one side through which one threads ribbons of potentially very bright, contrasting colors. See where I am going, eh? So I knit the top, with some modifications: I reduced the ribbing at the hips, and shaped the top quite dramatically by decreasing needle sizes twice. As I had about half of the yarn left over, I knit myself a skirt, too! And had just enough  to finish the piece! I actually had to use left over needlepoint floss to stitch the waist elastic in...

Then the question was: what color ribbons do I use? I settled on burnt orange, red and pink. But Jo-Ann's Crafts and Fabrics did not have the perfect colors! So I did two shades of pink and a red:

Niece, eh? Here's a full frontal view:

I particularly like the decapitated look. And the pink. It was my first foray into pink, and since then I have become increasingly excited about the color. Preferably in combination with orange (this is me, after all), but I now own several items that are unequivocally: pink! 

And notice the shoes? My Fuzzband convinced me to get those once upon a time, and they are amazing! The ensemble from the back: 

This photo really should have been taken with stockings that have seams in the back, I know.

I have since mainly worn the ensemble at conferences! With a read suede jacket I bought at the Amsterdam Airport back in the early 2000s, or with a burnt orange cardigan, or with a lavender top... It is surprisingly versatile, and incredibly comfortable. This past five weeks I had three conferences in Europe, and I wore it at all of them. In fact I presented two of my papers in it, at separate conferences, of course. I wore sensible black Clarks Wave.Run walking shoes in Huddersfield, and cute little Söft kitten heels in Leeds. As Söft does not have an image online of them, here they are via my smartphone:

All in all, the ensemble is fabulous for conferences. It is comfortable, travels well, is unique, and flattering. I felt great! Oh, and the papers went well, too. Is there anything like presenting your research in an outfit you have hand made from yarn given by an academic mentor, I ask? The answer must be "No". Thank you Ms. Law Mentor!

Bridal Butterflies!

One of my very best friends - and really, Grad School is worth it even just for the friends - is getting married! In Australia...

Fair enough, she and her fiancé are Australian, and it makes sense to get married back home. I know it will be an amazing wedding, and I really wish I could go. But we cannot have everything we want in life. However, some of us did throw her a bridal shower today! And by some of us, I mean three did the organizing and most of the cooking, and I hosted. And made cupcakes! It was a lovely party, thanks to the amazing women present! Many could not come, but know that it was awesome and we missed you.

Now, as I have a 30 minute conference paper on saints and medieval marriage theology to write, I am posting about the said cupcakes as I wait for a decadent number of Kir Royals (and that Wikipedia page is an example of semi-useless to be proud of!) to clear my system...

First I made Hummingbird Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook: Coconut, banana, pineapple cupcakes. I left out the toasted walnuts as I am allergic. The Bride is not, but whatever, she loves me enough not to want me to die at her shower. 

Then I desiccated ca 3 mm thick pineapple rounds. It took hours longer than the recipe called for, but how productive could I be: desiccate pineapple, write paper, clean bathroom, do dishes, pilates...

To give the pineapples the right floral shape they are set for the final dry in muffin tins.

 

One of the ladies brought over her cupcake stand, and here I have added cream cheese frosting to the baked good.

 In case you were wondering where the pineapple flowers go.

I then added these fabulous edible sugarpaper butterflies from Sugar Robot off Etsy.

Shameless plug for Sugar Robot! Friendly, quick, lovely! Edible!

Same cupcake tree, two different lightnings and angles.

The Beautiful Bride! (with cupcake)

Svale BSJ and the Ducky Sweater

Back in 2010 I decided to venture on the famous Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket (aka BSJ on Ravelry). I made one for Johanna, the daughter of Grad school friends, and for Elmer, the son of dear friends back in Finland. I used some lovely yarn left over from other projects. For Johanna's I used Dalegarn Svale left over from some dresses I had made:

The cotton/rayon/silk blend is lovely to knit with, and I had so much fun! The buttons were from my LYS (Local Yarn Store), when Yarn LLC still had a branch on Whitney Avenue, within walking distance of both home and campus. I did not know if Johanna was going to be a girl or a boy when I made this, but decided that if I loved the colors for the Hillmans, then chances were they would appreciate them, girl or boy. Besides, Mum and Dad Hillman are not very gender hysterical at all, and especially not with colors I imagine... I finished Johanna's Svale BSJ in May, according to my Ravelry archive, and apparently knit it in seven days! It was fun and fast, I remember that!



In fact, only a few months later I knit Elmer's BSJ from more leftover yarn, this time a gift from Laura of Lankadontti fame: Novita Nalle. Hence the Ducky Sweater came to be:

I of course love, love, love the colors here (wild!), and the hood with the I-cord. For the buttons I had duckies in mind - rubber duckies being the cultural emblem of us Swedish-Speaking-Finns, and the family this went to are part of the Duck Pond, just like me. OMG: there is a Wikipedia article on the pondishness!!!

Anyways. My friend Missknitter and I went to Stitches East just about the time I was ready to think about buttons, and found these AMAZING ducky buttons:

I wish I had grabbed a card from the merchant - or put it in a logical place to find later - so I could a) give credit here, b) get more! These are so much more articulated than the duckies from JoAnn, my usual button haunt. I love buttons here in the US! Not something you see listed as one of the benefits to immigrating to the US, that: "Upon moving to the US, a marvelous plethora of over-the-top and often sickly cute and utterly desirable buttons will become available to you at ubiquitous stores like JoAnn crafts and Michael's..." Too bad, really. The crafting culture, wildly different from Back Home (I sense a future post in this...), in North America is really fascinating. A big part of it is the commercialization of crafting, which has produced such magical things as the ducky button.

I mailed Mummy and Daddy Johanna and Mamma and Pappa Elmer the sweaters, and of course they very much appreciated them. Johanna's Mum showed it to a knitting friend, who commented on the interesting design. Yay! It made me, and still makes me even though the kids have outgrown the sweaters ages ago, so happy to think of them wearing them.

That is always one of the highlights of knitting stuff for Finns - they all automatically appreciate handmade items. It is just such an ingrained part of our culture. Not to say peeps here in the Americas don't. Many do, and I dare to claim ALL my friends and relatives very much appreciate handmade gifts and items in general - Johanna's parents are great examples! But there is an amazing amount of individuals who actually prefer store bought to hand made in the Americas. I know, shocking. I should have given warning before making such a terrible disclosure. I don't think I actually associate with such people, but I have met them. I should have taken photographs and done interviews...

OK. Enough cultural analysis!

What did I like about the BSJ and making it, I hear you ask?

I should have taken WIP (Work in Progress) photos to illustrate this: I love how the sweater is knit in one piece and then origamied into a sweater!  The only seams are across the shoulders. I, of course, love colors, and I love the way the striping emphasizes the structural design of the sweater. You can see in Johanna's Svale BSJ how the stripes go straight across the back, and then come and "turn a corner" on the sleeves and the front.

I also love the ease with which one can use up leftover yarn for it in fun and creative ways. Many BSJs are knit in self-striping or self-patterning yarn, according to a quick Ravelry browse of the 16908 projects, in 3891 queues, and while the results are marvelous, I really like the opportunity to use stash yarn and be all creative with it. In fact, I might have to start a new BSJ pretty soon, just so I can revel in the origaminess and destashiness of it all!

Lankadontti's tweed yarn

"I may be a highly trained historian, but I am an amazing craftswoman!" And humble, of course. Regardless, I feel this is one of the best ways I express who I am. History and handicrafts entwined and even symbiotic. Of course historical crafts are a big part of this. I am pretty dedicated to the knowledge of declining craft skills, and textile crafts in my own case. While I am in principle all about a) doing crafts, b) learning crafts, c) teaching craft, d) preserving this valuable knowledge, and doing this in my own life, there are some aspects I am very much less interested in:

Dyeing. Spinning.

I feel guilty for just not being super interested in these vital aspects of textile-crafts. I would love to be able to summon the interest and energy to do natural dyes from wode, onion skins, or even synthetic dyeing, like using KoolAid. And while spinning is actually quite fun, I am so not up to plying... 

I know. Pathetic. 

I try to console myself with the knowledge that I do know how to do these, where to find information and even help, and I have done it. In a post-apocalyptic society, I will be able to process fibers from sheep to sweater. Less confidently flax to frock, but given some time, I can do it. And seeds. And sheep. How I would obtain these in post-apocalyptic America is of course a mystery...

Anyway.

The lovely Laura from Lankadontti and Sanavyyhti, has once again stepped in and inspired me! And challenged me to re-examine my lack of enthusiasm for spinning: She has this month published, as the part of her series "instructions of the month" (on Sanavyyhti), a wonderful guide to do-it-yourself tweed yarn (in Finnish)! Not only are the results fabulously beautiful, but she uses leftover yarn in a very interesting and creative way. She cards in snibbles of leftover yarn into washed and cleaned wool, and spins it by hand into amazing and varied yarn - tweed! What really caught my attention here is the variability and beauty of random leftovers, and the encouragement to see even the smallest snibbles as an opportunity for creativity and fiber filled joy and beauty.

Waste is always unwelcome, and creative uses for leftover yarns are a fora for imagination and playfulness, just like Sanna Vatanen's great patterns and ideas in Neulo. Virkaa. Kirjo. Jämälangasta! (Helsinki; WSOY) show us. I will add Laura's pattern to my pool of inspiration for what to do with my leftovers. In fact, I kind of want to go home and dig out the little snippets I threw away when finishing off my middle Nephew's socks the other day, or a pair of Owl Mitts! I thought: "These pieces are surely too small to use for anything, even in Sanna's book..." (Sanna is a friend of my sister's, and a godmother to one of my Nephews, so I take the liberty of calling her by her first name - name dropping!). Little did I know.... Never again (well, never say never, but you know what I mean) will little snippets be thrown away - no! I will start a special snibbly-wibbly ziplock bag when I get home, just for the eventuality that there may be some tweeding of yarn in my life.

Will I actually sit down and make my own delicious tweed yarn? Will I spin it? Ply it? Who knows. Maybe. As I sit here in the Blue Dog Café the Yale Hall of Graduate Studies, taking a break from revising my third Dissertation chapter, it seems simultaneously imminent and exciting, far off and impossible. But my sister has the tools to prep wool, and I may be spending some time in Finland some day not in the too improbable future. Perhaps if I get Enough Done (tm) on my Diss, Laura will come to our summer cottage with me and we will drink tea, chat, and make tweed yarn...

 This image belongs to Laura Hämäri at Sanavyyhti.

Addenda a couple of hours later:

Of course I have now, two pages of Diss having been miraculously produced, spent my break googling hand carders, like these offered by Webs. America's Yarn Store... If I had the money (insert tune from Fiddler on the Roof for If I was a Rich Man...)...

Alien for Paul

 Awwwwwww....

That was my reaction when my friend from UConn contacted me with a request to make this Amigurumi "Fat" Baby for his and his lovely wife's incubating offspring. She of course was gestating a baby, but what about him? An Alien? So he felt an alien needed to be produced from somewhere...


At the Yale/UConn working group monthly meetings we have bonded over the importance of doing stuff with our hands while listening to Scholarship. He doodles; I craft. He has seen me do mittens, socks, and who knows what! I was racking my brain what to make for the baby - whom I project-named  Gzezenoc (my all-time favorite name to suggest to ALL people with planned or unborn babies, pets, plants, cars...). Gzezenoc was a brother to an early medieval Breton saint whose name I have forgotten - obviously not as ultimately cool a name as Gzezenoc! Fabulous saints aside, I was delighted for this thought process over what to make for Little Gzezenoc to be interrrupted, down right taken away from me by the Proud Father serving this fabulously fun pattern on a proverbial silver platter. And a crochet pattern no less! I have not crocheted in For Ever (tm), so I was excited to try it. I crocheted this in two short evenings, and enjoyed every second.

I am theoretically not buying more yarn until I have used up a LOT if not most of my ridiculous stash, but the Proud Father offered to pay for the yarn (Patons), and indeed did: he bought me a vodka and cranberry in Storrs the other day. Excellent deal for me!

 One of my favorite things about the pattern were the fingers and toes - here the fingers shown thumb down. Of course, the alternation between various kinds of crochets - teeny, tall - is perfect for this.















Toes!!!! I kind of want to make a caterpillar just because I LOVE these toes!

Here the little Alien is with Little Paul, watching his sleep. No matter how cute the Alien is - Paul is cuter!












Photograph courtesy of the Proud Father.



On a sort of random note: I crocheted an Alien for a young man named Paul. One of my favorite Alien movies ever (the intertextuality of geekdom rules it from first minute to last!) is called Paul. I find this absolutely fabulous! 

Japanese Wedding Socks

In the summer of 2010 two of our fabulous friends got married. It was an amazing wedding - on a ranch in Colorado! All (well, most) the guests stayed, cooked, hiked, rode horses, hung out at the ranch for a weekend. These are two dear friends, so unsurprisingly their families and friends are also wonderful, and we really enjoyed to get to know some of them, and other better than before. We also, of course, pitched in to help cook the delicious wedding feast - designed by the groom and bride.This included four vegetarians following with fascination as my Fuzzband cut up the lamb for the lamb and flower stew while I sat around the fire singing American folk songs...

As a wedding gift we gave them hand knit socks in IOU form.

The bride and groom headed to Yokohama/Tokyo Japan for a year in the fall for her research on select modern Japanese female poets, and so we decided to go visit them for American Thanksgiving later that same year! It was an amazing trip filled with food, friends, and exploring. Combining wedding gift with Japan, I decided to use Japanese knit patterns and give the happy couple the option of tabi or ordinary socks. The plan was to have enough knit when we got to Tokyo so I could at least complete one sock per spouse for sizing purposes. I, of course, finished the socks on the flight home... But that way we could send them a little package of toe-warming love from The Have.

Here you can see Hers and His socks in action - photo kindly provided by the happy couple who shall remain anonymous.

I wanted bamboo yarn - the whole Japan theme, and who would not want an excuse to knit with bamboo yarn? I searched high and lo, even recruiting the patient Miss Knitter to look for it. Finally, at Stitches East 2010,  we found it! The divine Bamboo Baby hand dyed yarn by Miss Babs: 60% Wool, 30% Bamboo, and 10% Nylon which makes it sockable, so to say. The yarn was one of my all-time favorite yarns to knit with. 

  

  Her Socks:

The pattern is Véronik Avery's "Tabi Socks" from Knitting Classic Style: 35 Modern Designs Inspired by Fashion's Archives (New York, NY; Stewart, Tabori and Chang (ABRAMS), 2007), 81-85.

The leafy pattern, according to the pattern notes "echo the lacy knitting patterns favored in contemporary Japan" (p. 82). While the socks are specifically tabis in the pattern, the bride asked for non-tabis, which is what she got. A great fun knit, and it of course made me even happier to make them for a unique and dear friend who - and I hope you are sitting down - had never had hand-knit socks before

  I really like the lace line that separates the lace panel of the instep from the sole of the foot and traces up the sock to the cuff lace

His socks:

This pattern is  Ann Budd's "Undulating Rib Socks" from Favorite Socks. 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave (Loveland, CO; Interweave Press, 2007), 92-95. This pattern is also Japanese in influence: 

"Inspired by a stitch pattern found in a Japanese knitting book, these socks feature an easily memorized pattern that alternates increases and decreases to create columns that widen and narrow."

The groom wanted his as tabis, so I used the instructions from Avery, and I am pretty pleased with the result.

Both have reportedly been happy with their socks, here shown snuggling in Yokohama. This is also a photo courtesy of the happy couple.